


Sway

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Haunted [11]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 11:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I can hear the sound of violins long before it begins. Make me thrill as only you know now, sway me smooth, sway me now.</p><p>For the prompt in round 14: <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/inception_kink/17669.html?thread=36656133#t36656133">"You kissed me."</a> Title, cut text and summary from "Sway" by Michael Buble. Also for the "counseling" box on my hc_bingo card.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sway

Alice didn't have any questions about the sudden appearance of the three of them on her doorstep. She nodded at them, as if she had been expecting them, and let them into the townhouse. "I made tea. It's a long night for me, at least." Eying them critically, Alice made a decision. "I'm spiking yours, just to let you know."

She poured generous amounts of cognac into their tea, which probably was considered a crime. Eames didn't allow Arthur to protest the move. Ariadne didn't even bother. She simply downed the entire mugful despite the burn and sat back on the couch. Eames drank his only after Arthur started in on the cognac with tea. "Thank you, Alice," he said. "We needed this."

"How bad did it get?" she asked, no judgment in her tone.

"I fucked up," Arthur said abruptly, breaking off what Eames would have said. "It's my fault."

"I killed someone," Ariadne told Alice in the silence after Arthur's pronouncement. "He wanted to kill Arthur, and I couldn't allow that."

Eames could see that Alice was shaken by the self recrimination in both of their voices. "I made the call to come here," he told Alice. "We need the time away."

"You stay here however long you need." Alice came to sit beside Arthur and touched his arm gently. "Whatever happened, you're still here, Arthur."

"I almost wasn't," Arthur told her, expression bleak. "I couldn't stop it from happening..."

"Other times you told me you failed," Alice began slowly, "it didn't affect you this badly. Those times with Cobb..."

"He had a death wish," Arthur snapped abruptly. "He didn't listen when I told him to walk away from things. He wouldn't do it anyone else's way."

"He had his demons, Arthur," Ariadne said tiredly. "He thought he could handle it, but it was getting out of control when I met him."

Arthur sat with his shoulders hunched slightly. "It was my job to know things. It's my job to plan ahead. I didn't plan ahead well enough."

Alice brushed his hair back. "Are you burning out, honey?" she asked softly. She clucked softly when Arthur's head snapped up angrily. "No shame in getting overwhelmed by a high stress job you've done for years and years. We've all been there. I'm going to call a few friends and see if there are any whispers out there on the three of you. It'll be better to know if you have Interpol picking up a trace now rather than when you're in the airport again."

"I checked," Eames said as Alice stood up. "We're in the clear for now."

"Good. I'm still calling, just in case." Alice looked over the three of them. "When you burn out, the first thing you have to figure out is why you bother to do the job. Why stay in it?" She looked over the stacks of books on her dining room table. "You have to love a job like that. It has to be something that's part of you, something you can't do without. Otherwise, you'll never get that edge back."

"This is what I do, Mom," Arthur snapped.

Alice merely lofted an eyebrow at him. "But is it still what you want?"

He didn't have an answer for her.

***

Though their bodies didn't feel as though it was time to go to bed, Alice bundled them off to the bedroom to at least rest. No one really thought they would, but it was worth the relieved smile on Alice's face. "Tell me a story," Eames said in a sing-song voice, hoping to coax a smile out of his lovers.

Ariadne smiled and ruffled his hair like a child's. "Like a fairy tale?"

Eames could see Arthur's glower out of the corner of his eyes. Still beating up on himself, then. He shook his head and pulled Ariadne close. "How about... How about how you two hooked up and became a couple? You were together long before you brought me into this."

Arthur stopped scowling at his luggage and looked over at Eames curiously. "You never cared before."

He shrugged. "It was a happier time, wasn't it?"

Ariadne laughed at Arthur's sheepish expression. "We've never actually told anyone how it started. We just tell people we met at work, and they assume it was from that."

Eames merely stared at them steadily. "And?"

"It was during the Fischer job."

"So?"

"As in, _during_ the Fischer job. While we were all under."

Eames laughed at Arthur, thinking it was a joke. When he didn't laugh along with him, he stopped. "Really? But what about your professionalism, darling? It's all you ever talk about."

"Well, it was during the week we were hiding out on the first level before the timer ran out," Arthur admitted, coming to sit down on the bed beside Eames.

"He was very smooth about it, too," Ariadne joked as she tucked her feet under her and leaned into Eames with a smile.

"Oh, this I have to hear," Eames said with a smile.

Arthur heaved a melodramatic sigh but his lips quirked into a smile. "If I must," he said with a put-upon tone of voice.

***

Once the shock of coming up out of the river passed, they all knew they had to get under cover. They had gotten this far, but they weren't fully awake yet. There were six days left under this layer, and there were boltholes built into it that should hide them until the time ran down. As usual, Arthur recovered first; the sudden violent shudder in Ariadne's shoulder was enough to remind him about the risks of hypothermia, even in a dream.

"We should split up," Arthur told Yusuf, who looked more than ready to cut and run anyway. "Do you know where you're headed?"

"Probably the north side of the map," Yusuf said, wringing out part of his shirt. He pulled a face when the wet shirt fell back against his skin. "The faster the better, it seems like."

Arthur nodded his agreement. "There's enough of real world physics at work here that hypothermia might set in. Give me a call tomorrow. The security might be low enough to meet up at that point, if you want."

"I'll let you know I'm still alive," Yusuf said, starting to head away from the river. "But I think it's safest to stay hidden until the timer runs through."

"Fair enough." He turned toward Ariadne, who was starting to shake. "Come on. We need to get you warmed up."

She didn't protest when he started dragging her away from the river. Her steps were uncertain as the shudders wracked through her, and she leaned heavily against Arthur. "But this is a dream. Why do I feel like I'm really going to freeze to death?"

"Your mind thinks you should," Arthur told her. He squeezed her hand tightly, earning him a curl of lip that almost resembled a smile. "There should be a hiding spot you built near here. We can at least start there and get you warm. Then we can figure out what to do."

It felt farther away than Ariadne remembered, but her eyes kept wanting to close and her teeth were chattering. She nearly bit her tongue a few times, and she swore that she could feel her vertebrae grate against each other with every shiver. Arthur seemed to be bearing up better, though she could still see shivers in his torso and he was deathly pale. Security was lax enough that they made it to the hiding place, and Ariadne didn't protest when Arthur pulled off her jacket and stripped her down to her underwear. He did the same, his fingers shaking a little on his buttons. Ariadne tried helping, but her fingers fumbled through the fabric and she felt more like a hindrance than a help.

Their underwear clung to their skin, leaving nothing to the imagination, and Ariadne tried not to stare. She was quite possibly too hypothermic to blush, but she had no idea about the physique beneath the suits.

Arthur's hand at her shoulder startled her a bit. "You should take the shower first. I'll look for towels or blankets or something. You need to get your core temperature up."

"What about you?"

He gave a polite cough and managed to look as though he wasn't ogling her. "I'll take a turn after you, Ariadne. I'll manage."

Arthur may have been acting like a gentleman, but he still checked out her ass as she walked to the bathroom. He missed the smile curling across her lips when she caught it.

Ariadne had the water on as hot as she could tolerate, even if it wasn't as warm as she usually had her showers. It was relatively quick, since she shut off the water as soon as she heard Arthur enter the bathroom with whatever towels he could find. "I didn't want to create more," he was starting to say, passing her a towel through a gap in the shower curtain. "I figure just in case the subconscious security would catch something like that. We don't want to make any waves if possible."

Taking the towel in hand, Ariadne snapped the shower curtain open, baring herself to Arthur's gaze. His eyes widened in surprise, and she could clearly see the desire there. Without thinking, she reached forward and grasped his shoulders. She pulled him in for an open mouthed kiss, tongue sliding into his slack mouth. That seemed to electrify him, and his hands slid to her waist as he pulled her close. His skin was cold against hers, making her gasp against his mouth. There was a soft sound deep in his throat as she molded herself against him, and she could feel the evidence of his desire.

When the kiss ended, Arthur looked at her evenly. "You kissed me."

Ariadne couldn't help but flash him a satisfied grin. "Yes, I did."

"Should we?... I mean, there's a discussion that we could have... if you wanted to have one?"

Ever the gentleman. Ariadne grinned wider and let one of her hands run down his muscled back. Oh, yum. "Look... I kissed you, with tongue, and I plan to do it again and again." Her smile was downright impish at this point, and he was starting to grin at her in return. "Get used to it. End of discussion."

Arthur laughed. "Okay."

"No arguments? No concern about this not going according to any plan?" Ariadne teased.

"Is this payback for that kiss in the hotel?"

Now it was Ariadne's turn to laugh, and she pulled him backward as she threw down the towel she realized she was still holding. "You were such a horrible, horrible tease, Arthur." He followed her into the shower stall easily, and he crowded her until her back hit the cold tiles. "You were totally scamming me out of a kiss."

"Maybe. It might have been a good distraction," he answered, smiling wide enough for his dimples to show.

"I had to make sure things worked on the next layer, because we had to get through this," Ariadne said, rubbing his back in slow circles. "We have to finish what you started."

"We do have six days. And you plan to kiss me again, you said," Arthur told her, a teasing note in his voice.

"Oh, yes," Ariadne replied, grinning at him. She stood on her tip toes and pulled him down for another passionate kiss.

***

Eames laughed and pulled Arthur down on the bed, rolling slightly over him. "Oh, yes. Very smooth, Arthur."

Ariadne scrambled around Eames and leaned over Arthur's head to give him a kiss. Her hand cupped the side of his face, her fingers curling along the line of his jaw. "So that's how it started," she murmured, leaning down to give him another kiss.

"When you first got together," Eames began, his right hand resting lightly over Arthur's heart, "what did you think would happen? What did you want?"

"To see her build amazing things," Arthur murmured as Ariadne said "To build." He laughed a little and reached up to stroke her face. "To keep you safe," Arthur added in a softer tone.

"You do, Arthur," Ariadne told him. She pressed her lips against his forehead, her hair falling in a curtain around his face. "You keep us safe, and this time it was my turn to help you. And Ben's turn to help us both. Give and take, that's how it is."

Eames slid his hand across Arthur's chest so that he could lean down and rest his head there. "You were the one that said we had to trust each other," he murmured softly. "You said it had to be balanced between us. I had to trust you not to hurt me, and you had to trust that I'd tell you if it got painful."

Arthur reached up and carded his fingers through Eames' hair. "Yeah. I said something like that," he allowed with a sigh.

"Push and pull, like the ocean," Eames continued. "You've been to beaches, yeah? You see the tide coming in and out? You see the lines in the sand that they leave behind?"

"You have a point to this, don't you?" Arthur asked, the sharper edge in his voice more like sarcasm.

Eames chuckled. "Impatient bastard," he said fondly. "Yes, there's a point. This might be your ebb tide, but that doesn't mean you stay that way. You'll come back, darling. If Ariadne was your reason to stay in dream share, you'll find your way back."

Arthur was silent for a long moment. "Should we stay?" he asked in a low tone. "Or is this when we step back and stop?"

Eames picked his head up and he saw Ariadne giving Arthur a sad look. His eyes were on her face, and Eames could almost see Arthur weighing his options. "No rush to decide."

Ariadne stroked Arthur's face gently. "We have time, Arthur. No one's looking for us, no jobs lined up. We can figure out what we want."

The breath left him slowly, and he looked at them both with a pained expression. "I don't know what I want anymore."

Eames leaned in and kissed him softly. "Then I made the right call in coming here, darling. Now we can figure it out."

***

Eames had taken over Alice's kitchen in the morning. He hadn't been able to sleep well, and left Arthur and Ariadne behind in bed together, their arms and legs tangled around each other. He worried about them in different ways. Ariadne would likely soon get nightmares, since she wasn't a seasoned killer and never would be. It simply wasn't in her nature to be so callous and cold, and she was more of a nurturing figure. Arthur had honed his harder edges into sharp blades, but it was starting to wear him down. He was too relentless, never really stopping to take stock of his place in the world. Eames had been the same way before, but the two of them had forced him to step back. He couldn't operate the way he used to. He'd changed so much in the past year, and he didn't _want_ to be the same oblivious bastard he had been before.

So to help think about what to do next, he started cooking. There were all sorts of fresh items in Alice's fridge, so he started to whip up batter for French toast and planned to make omelettes. He could bring his lovers breakfast in bed and coddle them a bit. It was only fair. He couldn't remember the last time Ariadne had put his cuffs and collar on, and it was likely back in February. Eames paused as he realized that he hadn't _needed_ her controlling him. He'd been more than comfortable with taking control and having their trust. He'd taken on the role without thinking, and it felt natural.

They hadn't planned that outcome, but there it was just the same.

"Mmmm. No wonder my son was so secretive about you," Alice said with a warm smile as she entered the kitchen. She had a fluffy bathrobe tied around her waist and red slippers. "That smells wonderful. Make me some?"

"Aren't you a little underdressed for work?" Eames asked, eyebrow arched as he reached for more eggs. It wouldn't take long to make extra batter.

Alice coughed dramatically and sounded hoarse when she spoke next. "I think I caught something, and I'm gonna throw up again. It's best if I don't pass this along to the rest of you. Hopefully I'll be back in a day or two."

Eames grinned at her. "Sneaky, sneaky, Alice."

She laughed and started setting the coffee pot. "Arthur got it from somewhere, you know."

"He may not want to really admit it, but he might indeed be burning out," Eames said slowly, whisking the batter. Alice nodded sympathetically as she went to get water for the coffee pot. "He did say last night he doesn't know what he wants anymore."

She made a face. "The kiss of death, as far as he's concerned. That boy needs to be in constant motion. He's not happy unless he's _busy."_

"Has he ever taken a vacation?" Eames asked. There were day trips and the like around Paris, or quick weekends for visits or observing cities that Ariadne wanted to design from. Even so, there had always been a purpose to those trips. Arthur had never simply gone somewhere without some kind of itinerary in mind.

Alice snorted and hit the button to start the pot brewing. "My son? Ha. Every summer without fail he had at least one job and some kind of project he was working on. He had a whole semester's worth of college credits before he graduated high school and was upset with himself that he didn't get another full semester's worth."

Eames laughed. "Sounds like Arthur."

She looked at him a little appraisingly, head tilted to the side. "You seem more... I don't know. Put together, maybe. Not so testy."

"Arthur hadn't exactly told you about me last time," Eames remarked, starting to work on the French toast. "It's rather nerve wracking to meet someone that might disapprove of your very existence when you're in a foreign country and you've got nowhere else to stay."

Alice snorted again and smacked his arm. "You sell yourself short, Benjamin. Sounds like a chronic thing, from our conversations at Thanksgiving." She leaned against the counter, the coffee pot's bubbling and toast's sizzling the only noise in the room for a moment. She gave Eames a long and assessing glance. "You've decided on something for them. That's what's different. You're taking care of them this time. It's not the other way around."

"You're quite perceptive, Alice."

She grinned. "Arthur had to get that from somewhere, too."

Eames finished up the toast and started working on the omelettes. Alice poured out the coffee for herself once the pot beeped, and followed Eames' directions for how he and the others wanted theirs. "You're not going to tell me your plans?" Alice asked finally.

"You get plausible deniability if you don't know," Eames joked with a smile. He laughed outright when she snagged a piece of French toast and started to chew on it. "Well?"

"Really good," she said around a mouthful of toast. "You can take over my kitchen anytime, Ben." She leaned over and pressed an affectionate kiss to his cheek. "You're good for my son, you know that? And Ariadne too, of course. She's darling."

"I'm glad you think so, Alice," Eames replied, meaning it.

She grinned and took the rest of her toast and coffee with her back to her bedroom. "Give me warning if you're going to make a lot of noise, okay?" she teased, heading toward the stairs. "Remember, I'm a deathly sick woman."

Eames laughed and finished the omelettes. He had plans for his lovers.

***

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?" Arthur complained. "Can you even drive on this side of the road?"

"Ariadne, love? Can you shove a scarf into his mouth as a gag or something?" Eames asked sweetly, not taking his eyes off of the road. Ariadne was in the passenger seat beside him, and Arthur was sprawled across the back seat with a book in his hands. He simply didn't know to relax. Ariadne actually turned around in her seat, waving a scarf in hand threateningly. Arthur didn't seem terribly impressed by that.

"Where are we going?" Arthur tried again once Ariadne turned around.

"We've got another two hours of driving, darling," Eames sing-songed. "You can wait that long, can't you? I don't want to spoil the surprise."

He grumbled, but put his nose back into the book. Eames smiled and kept driving. He had made a bet with Alice that Arthur wouldn't last even an hour before complaining, and she had thought he could go until the two hour mark. He would have to text her that he won the bet.

Assateague Island was a national park that he had found while doing a quick Google search on his phone while Arthur was in the shower. Alice got him a car without any questions and helped pack some of Arthur's and Ariadne's belongings so that Eames could surprise them. The island had over 37 miles of beaches, wild ponies randomly wandering around the beaches, salt marshes and even a pine forest. According to the park's website, there were plenty of trails for hikes as well as guided tours to look at all the wildlife. He had no set plans for the day and had no intentions of making any.

Poor Arthur would go nuts once he finished that book he had managed to grab on the way to the car. There was nothing else among their things that even remotely resembled work but his phone, and Eames fully intended to pocket that as soon as possible.

"Doing all right, Ariadne?" Eames asked, settling a hand onto Ariadne's knee. She smiled up at him and nodded, but he knew she had a nightmare the night before. He could only guess that it was about the man she had killed. Eames merely caressed her knee with his thumb. "You both told me a story the other night, it's only fair that I tell you one," he said after a moment.

"Oh, Ben. You don't have to..." Ariadne protested.

Eames smiled at her. Even now, she was trying to protect him from himself. If anything, he now realized they didn't have to. He had clung to the belief that he was worthless for so long without questioning it. Over the past several months, he was proving to himself that he had grown up with nothing but lies. While it might be his default stance, it didn't have to be true, and it didn't have to be anything he clung to.

"I was in military school once," he began. "I left early, of course. I simply disappeared and wasn't found again for quite some time. But I appeared in some circles as Henry Forrester, and those were some nasty circles indeed." He could see Ariadne's rapt expression out of the corner of his eye, and he could almost feel Arthur perk up in the backseat. "One bloke, Anthony Cordell... He was a particularly nasty piece of work." Eames tapped his steering wheel as he thought about how to explain the story without making them automatically sorry for him. "It was a tangle," he said finally.

"Bloke was angry and bitter and just too goddamn headstrong to listen to reason. Didn't like to think of himself as a pouf either, but he was. Two of us worked with a few others, petty bullshit jobs. He pulled a fast one on one of the guys working with us on a scam in South London. He said something about the man cheating us out of the goods, made some sort of reference to fucking him and pulled a knife. At that point... It was a mess. I haven't thought about it in years, but God, the other guy... I don't even remember his name now, but he was nothing but blood and guts when Anthony was done with him. Just went right out of his mind. I had to kill him, because he was coming at me with the knife next."

"So what happened next?" Ariadne asked, her eyes wide.

"He was the first man I'd ever killed. Self defense, but death is death," Eames said quietly. "You don't forget that," he said, looking over at her in the passenger seat. "And you shouldn't. You keep that in mind and you think about how serious that is. It's okay if you're not sorry, because you're standing and he's not. But it's not okay to feel like you have the right to do it again and again. It's not okay to think it doesn't affect you."

Ariadne nodded and reached across the console between them to lay her hand on his thigh. "Okay."

"But what happened next?" Arthur insisted.

"Cut and run, of course. Created a new name and everything. It's how I started out in forging documents." Eames shrugged. "Spence pulled a few strings here and there, and he actually got me into the army under an assumed name at one point. That eventually led to dream share." He managed to flash Arthur a smile. "But that's a story for another day."

Arthur snorted and rolled his eyes. It was a move that was very much like Alice's. Apparently he had finished his book and was bored. "We still have time, don't we?"

"Another hour at least."

"What the hell is three hours from DC that's worth going to?" Arthur groused, shifting in his seat. He was starting to get antsy, and it was enough to make Ariadne laugh at him.

"You'll see," Eames promised. "It's worth the wait."

***

"Oh my God, Ben, it's beautiful!" Ariadne cried, looking around in amazement.

"See? A little beach therapy and all will be forgiven," Eames snarked.

"You are a lousy therapist," Arthur said, though there was a wide smile on his face as he took in the beach.

"I will admit that my methods are unorthodox and unconventional. But they work," he said with a grin. "Trust me."

"Of course I do," Arthur replied instantly. Ariadne simply let her hand slide through his and squeezed. "We're not dressed for hiking or swimming, though."

Eames snorted. "I took care of that, too." He led them to the trunk of the car and opened it, revealing a bag inside. "What do you want to do first?"

Arthur actually seemed at a loss. He honestly had no idea what he wanted to do, though Ariadne grinned and threw her arms around Eames. "Let's swim. I want to watch the ocean."

It was easy enough to pull Arthur along. Rather like how things had started between the two of them, he sent out little signals of what he liked and then followed her lead when she charged ahead. Eames simply grinned at them. He could see why it had worked out between them, why it had been Ariadne to start things and pull him in. Eames sat on the beach after they all changed, watching Ariadne pull Arthur into the water. The waves lapped at the shoreline in a steady rhythm, and the two of them chased each other around. Ariadne let out a delighted squeal when she saw some of the wild horses galloped by, and Arthur picked her up in his arms and swung her around.

This didn't fix anything, of course. It was a distraction, enough of a downtime to let Arthur see what really mattered in his life. It was hard to see that sometimes if you were jumping from one crisis to the next, and that seemed to be the way he worked best. He thrived on adrenaline; he never would have lasted in dream share otherwise. But they could certainly scale back their involvement and be even more choosy about the jobs they took. They didn't have to work if they didn't want to. And while it might not have the same rush or thrill of the chase as illegal work did, Eames was sure there was still enough legal work available for them to start getting involved in.

Eames grinned when Arthur came trotting up to him, Ariadne clinging to his back like a wet monkey. Arthur grinned at him, eyes crinkling and dimples showing. He couldn't pull Eames to his feet, since he was holding Ariadne's thighs around his waist. "Come with us," Arthur said, nodding toward the ocean. "It's fun!"

"You? Know what fun is?" he scoffed playfully, rolling to his feet. "Oh dear, something happened to our Arthur."

"Shut up, asshole," Arthur retorted, though the smile was still on his face. "Don't just sit there. You've got to come with us."

"Yeah, Ben. Please?" Ariadne asked, grinning at him. "Play with us."

Eames got up and put his arms around the both of them. His head nestled between theirs, he could feel Ariadne's arms encircling his shoulders. Arthur even managed to shift his balance so that he could get one arm around Eames as well. Ariadne hooked that leg around his waist, making him laugh. "You do realize that playing with you the way I want to is considered indecent in these parts?" he teased.

Arthur nipped at his ear. "Tease. We'll get you back for that."

Holding them both close, Eames merely chuckled. "Promises, promises."

Eames caught Arthur's eye after he let go of them. "Thank you," Arthur murmured softly. "I needed this."

"I know." He grinned at the point man, then nodded at the water. "I'll race you. Last one in is the one that gets the other two off."

"I'm carrying Ariadne!" Arthur protested as Eames took off running.

Laughing all the while, Eames headed straight into the ocean. They were lucky enough in that they had time to figure things out. They would, he was sure of it.

But it wasn't going to be today, and probably not for a while yet. He was more than okay with that. Looking back at Arthur and Ariadne, he could tell that they were, too.

 

The End


End file.
